Blair with cool neon fingers
Indie music divides me. I sit painfully on the fence and my love-hate relationship with the genre makes it very difficult to fully embrace this popular movement.
Let me first be clear in what I mean exactly by Indie music, in this particular instance. I refer to cutesy little guitar based bands that have a tendency to embellish their songs with glockenspiels and squeaky clean vocals. I suppose this is a sub-genre of Indie of which I am too ignorant to know the precise reference or classification, but I think you know what I mean. I distinguish between these artists and other Indie artists that still play their guitars and synths way loud and do occasionally shout into the microphone (in a good way). Now that I think about it, I might be talking about Modern Folk music, but Folk-Indie. Soft Folk-Indie, perhaps?
This brand of Indie music often leaves me feeling disenchanted and frustrated. The repetitive twang of the banjo and the isolated wail of a male vocal melody abandoned by the already minimalistic strum of an acoustic guitar, of course, and a sporadically struck high-hat leaves a wide, gaping hole in the sonic experience that listening to a song should be, in my opinion anyway. Not to say that acoustic or even just “soft” music isn’t great, indeed it often is, just that these modern manifestations I find often lack heart or genuine substance. I guess that is just my opinion. Many folk (see what I did there) whom are good friends of mine are really into this scene at the moment and it certainly has some cred behind it with the extreme success of accomplished artists like Grizzly Bear and Fleet Foxes, I just really dislike the diluted imitation bands that weakly attempt to mimic these artists. Often the music is hollow and underwhelming.
Anyways, enough whining. Two artists in this genre who I believe do a good job are the titular Blair and Beach House. The lesser known, Blair, has recently moved to NYC, the epicenter of all things cool, it seems. I like her brand of soft Indie folk tinged rock. It is authentic and moving, as it should be, plus it still rocks out. See Hearts below, off the Die Young LP. Beach House have been getting a decent amount of coverage lately with the release of their most recent record Teen Dream. The simple, repetitious melody at the intro had me hooked instantly. The song is full of charm and soothes endlessly. Lovely listening.
Samples of both tracks are available below. Enjoy gooooood quality soft folk Indie.
Happy Music 